Et tu, Carlsbad? We certainly hope this isn't the start of a national trend. If so, it'd be more like a national embarrassment. As a general rule, cities, towns and municipalities should not step in and try to curb illegal immigration. As the U.S. Constitution makes plain, that's the sole responsibility of the federal government.

Americans are rightly and thoroughly disgusted with the failures of Washington politicians on the border with Mexico. So we apologize in advance for the following reminder that these do-nothings in Congress, with their baffling inability to carry out the routine obligations of government, are costing San Diegans billions of dollars as well as robbing its citizens of precious hours with their families.

Perhaps nobody was happier than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after California sweated through the July heat wave, its worst in 57 years, with no major blackouts. The governor is an expert in how angry people get when officials shut off their air conditioning – he was elected when voters punished former Gov. Gray Davis for bungling the 2000-01 power crisis. But if Schwarzenegger manages to keep his job in November, he may have enjoyed his last celebration over the state of the electricity system.

FORT IRWIN, Calif. – If America's soldiers ultimately prevail in Iraq, it will be in no small measure because of lessons learned here across a 1,100-square-mile battlefield in the sun-scorched Mojave Desert. Ten times a year, 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. Army troops, up to 50,000 each year, bound for Iraq cycle through a counterinsurgency regimen so realistic that soldiers occasionally succumb to battle fatigue and veterans of past Iraq tours sometimes suffer combat flashbacks.

Labor Day is a good time to dig into a phrase that has been bandied about in the immigration debate: “Jobs that Americans won't do.” As in, immigrants – legal and illegal – are working at jobs that Americans won't do.